Rent @ Hope Mill Theatre - September 2021

 

It takes a really talented bunch of people to take a musical that's been around for over a quarter of a century, and find a way to completely reinvent it and make it feel fresh and relevant again.

But that's exactly what the team at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester have managed to do with Jonathan Larson's Rent.

This production was in the works for the last couple of years, and played a handful of performances before the November lockdown hit.

Now it's back!

There's something strangely emotive at the decision to have this like an old-school group of players coming together and telling a story, as if round a campfire. The cast all enter together and sit at chairs surrounding the stage, stepping in to play their character(s) and contribute to the telling of the tale. Something about being able to watch Roger sing 'One Song Glory' whilst Mimi looks on, or Mark and Joanne dance the Tango Maureen whilst she eyes them questionably, adds another dimension and is a real highlight of director Luke Sheppard's vision for the piece.

The cast is an embarrassment of riches, so much so that I really don't think I will see a better collective group of actors come together to collectively do this show.

Luke Bayer's Mark is a superb narrator, who's camera acts as the narrative tool to enable us to see into people's lives. Tom Francis adds real grit to Roger, who's One Song Glory builds and builds until it's completion in the finale, in part due to Maiya Quansah-Breed's multi-layered Mimi. Alex Thomas-Smith is giving a truly star-turn as Angel, perfectly matched against Dom Hartley-Harris as Collins.

The star of the piece though has to be Millie O'Connell as the outlandish Maureen. I turned to a friend at the interval and we both said that, despite having seen multiple versions of the show before, Maureen's speech 'Over The Moon' has never been properly funny before. In O'Connell's hands, it's so full of humour and naughtiness that I almost fell out of my chair.

It's also the first time I've ever seen the show with the actors who are actually the age of the characters they're playing. Certainly the original cast were a touch older than playing (I mean they definitely were in the film!) and it only added to quite how believable everyone was in their roles.

The show is in it's final week in Manchester, but I really hope this will make it's way to London in the future - I feel like it's one of the most definitive productions of Rent there has been, and it deserves to be seen on a much larger scale.

⭐⭐⭐⭐